


in the aftermath

by miominmio



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abuse, Hope, Love, M/M, Mention of torture, Poor Bucky, Recovery, Support, Torture, steve's love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 18:57:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10792758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miominmio/pseuds/miominmio
Summary: Events following Captain America: The Winter Soldier. After deciding to leave the Winter Soldier persona behind him for good, Bucky is a mess. He struggles to cope with everyday life. But Steve is there every part of the way - always.





	in the aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for this fandom before, but I love it and I felt a bit sad that the movies didn't really cover Bucky's recovery from his whole ordeal at the hands of Hydra because he spent so many years with them after all and in Captain America: The Civil War he acts like he's all good again. But recovery from abuse is a hard road and I wanted to do Bucky justice in depicting it. 
> 
> It is a little bit short, but I might potentially do some more on the topic if there is enough interest ;)

It starts with a falling jar in a crowded supermarket. 

Bucky does not see it fall. He sees it shatter, scattering red stuff over the floor. The pool reaches his shoes - white sneakers, Steve chose them for him - and dyes them red.

He hears Steve say: "Buck-"

And then he's off. He runs through the aisles, weaving effortlessly between shoppers, toward the exit. He reaches the outer limit of the car park and stops. There are too many cars - too many colours, too many noises - and he can't think. He can't escape. His breath comes shallow, and he presses his fists against his temples, vision blurring and heart thudding. Somehow he ends up on the tarmac, crouching behind a car, rocking on his heels. The sounds don't stop. The colours swirl in his head even as he closes his eyes. 

_During one of the very first days, when his arm is still bleeding through the bandage and causing Bucky a world of hurt, they make him stand to attention with a glass of water in his hand. He's not allowed to drink the water. Later, he realises that it's just one of their sadistic games, meant to break down his resolve and dignity so that they can build him up again the way they want him to be. When it happens, he's just confused, and thirsty, and scared. He's been given fluids intravenously so he's not in any danger of dehydrating, but his throat is still parched, and as he stands there, condensation builds on the outside of the glass and he can feel it against his skin, and he's desperate to drink. But they've told him that they'll take his other arm if he does. Or if he drops the glass. They've already beaten him, and cut him, and burned him. He heals, only for them to do it all over again. They don't ask questions. They don't respond to his questions or his pleas or his curses and he doesn't know whether that is because they don't speak English or because they've been instructed not to interact with him, but it's a torture in its own right to be ignored. So when he's standing there with a glass of water in his shaking hand, he thinks of drinking it just to get back at them in the only way he can. Demonstrate to them that he's still alive in that battered shell of a body of his. In the end, he doesn't drink the water and he doesn't drop the glass, and he lasts for a little over 13 hours before he faints from sheer exhaustion. He's unconscious before his body hits the floor and before the glass shatters. They don't punish him for it when he is next conscious, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Bucky suspects that is because he behaved exactly as they wanted him to do._

The next thing Bucky is aware of is a couple of hands - strong, calloused - prying his own from his head. He looks up, and sees Steve, who's kneeling before him, his face a story of sadness.

"Steve?" He asks, because he has to make sure, because so many times it's not been Steve, it's been his head playing tricks on him.

"I'm here, Bucky. I'm here." His voice is sad, too, and Bucky thinks that his voice is the same voice of that skinny kid he used to know once.

Bucky looks to the side and sees no shopping bags and he realises that Steve didn't bother finish his shopping. He ran straight after Bucky.

"I'm sorry," Bucky mumbles, and he can't look Steve in the eyes. He's ashamed of himself, of his own weakness. When he's not the Winter Soldier, Bucky realises that he's barely a ghost.

Steve's hands cover the sides of Bucky's head. His gaze is steady, and burns with resilience. Bucky hangs on to that resilience as if it is a buoyancy aid.

"Don't apologise, Bucky," he says, his voice a rumble," don't you ever apologise."

But Steve doesn't know how wrong he is, Bucky thinks. Because it's been month since his last wipe and since he was rid of Hydra for good, so he should be fine now. He should be moving on. Yet here he is, falling apart because of a broken jar. Because some red-coloured food reached his shoe and it looked like-

_They tell him that Captain America is dead. They inform him that he was captured, and tortured, that he begged for his life like a coward, but they shot him and he bled out. They show him a uniform, and Bucky's eyes are so swollen that he can't see properly, but he sees a star and a lot of rips and lot of blood. It's the last time that Bucky thinks of escape._

But Steve - wonderful, steadfast, brilliant Steve - Steve demonstrates to Bucky that he can never underestimate the kindness of his friend. Steve pulls his shoes off gently and tosses them in the bin. Bucky's body sags in relief, and it's stupid because they were perfectly good shoes and it was just a little of bit of red on the soles and his Ma would have slapped him all the way to seventh heaven if she knew how wasteful he had been, but he's relieved and it feels good to not be terrified. They were just shoes.

Bucky doesn't mind walking barefoot, but Steve scoops him up and takes him to his car - although Bucky hurriedly fastens his seatbelt before Steve can do it for him because he knows that if he goes too far that Steve will just think him pathetic - and they drive home.

"Sam's showed me how to order food online anyway," says Steve with a sideways smile at Bucky," it'd be a meaningful exercise in digital technology."

Bucky says nothing but he enjoys listening to Steve. He can barely believe that there was a time when it was him who did most of the talking - it's Steve who's got the sweetest voice, the most interesting things to say. In the Red Room, Bucky forgot his Ma's voice, that of his Pa. But he never forgot Steve's.

At home, Steve orders pizza and they watch Xena The Warrior Princess and Sam joins them, offering up a lot of trivia about the show and about Lucy Lawless. The scene at the supermarket feels remote, and Bucky is as comfortable as he believes he will ever be, in the company of men who make him feel human. 

Yet as darkness falls outside, he becomes ever more jittery, and he knows that Steve knows when he turns the TV off and looks at Bucky. 

Bucky nods.

In silence, Steve goes to fetch Bucky's medicine bag from its special place under the sink. Bucky likes to keep it there because he doesn't want Sam to find out. He's barely OK with Steve knowing, but he has long since acknowledged that at least once person needs to know, and that one person better be Steve. 

The bag is brimming with pill jars and boxes. Because Bucky's memory plays up when it comes to long scientific terms and names, they've colour-coded the medicine. Sleeping tablets are blue. They've been prescribed to Bucky by a doctor called Dr. Lyons, who specialises in PTSD and abuse trauma and is a friend of Sam's. It still took weeks before Bucky tried the medicine, and he only did it because of one rough, sleepless night when he nearly killed Steve because he thought that he was Karpov.

Steve hands Bucky a cup of water - it's never a glass, Steve knows - and two pills and Bucky takes them and wonders if there will ever be a  day when he falls asleep without aid.

_They leave him on his own for two days. The door to the cell remains shut, no water, no food, no natural light. When they open it again, he's curled up in one corner, and he's speaking but he doesn't even know himself what he is saying._

_Karpov crouches before him. "Пора тебе научиться что никто не хочет с тобой разговаривать, или вовсе признать что ты человек. Понимаешь меня, солдат? А?"_

_Bucky raises his head from his hands. "What?" He rasps. "I don't-"_

_The backhand he receives slams his head to the side of the wall._

_"Мерзавец! Я тебе разве разрешил разговаривать?!" And Bucky is backhanded again. There is blood on the wall now._

_"Please - I don't understand-"_

_It's been two days and the first human contact Bucky receives makes him feel less than human. It's not that Bucky has previously been treated humanely, but it's something about the way that Karpov now talks to him that makes him think that they've upped their game. He still doesn't know what they want._

_Karpov goes on for hours like that, shouting Russian at him and beating him, until Bucky finally learns to be silent._

_"Не смотри на меня. Не разговаривай с мной. Ты боевое средства - и ты мне принадлежишь!"_

_Many weeks later, when Bucky learns Russian and understands Karpov's words, he thinks that it was needless of Karpov to say that. He knew it the moment they told him that Steve was dead._

The medicine takes half an hour to kick in.

Steve reads in bed while Bucky brushes his teeth and showers, and when Bucky climbs into bed the lights go off, but Steve found an alien-shaped night light in IKEA and it keeps the shadows at bay even in the darkness. It's another stupid little thing that anchors Bucky to this flimsy life he's created for himself with Steve in the aftermath.

He's ashamed of it, just as he is ashamed of all the things he can't do anymore because of what happened, and even so it's hard sometimes to accept all those things that were done to him - that he did - and the residue of Karpov's words and his deeds are still in his brain and won't go away.

But when Steve puts an arm around him in bed, and when Bucky hears his breath calm before he falls asleep himself, always with his head on Steve's shoulder, when the night is a little less dark because of a night light, then even Bucky can allow himself to believe in a tomorrow, and one after that.

And one after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Some translations: 
> 
> Пора тебе научиться что никто не хочет с тобой разговаривать, или вовсе признать что ты человек. Понимаешь меня, солдат? А? - It's time for you to learn that no one wants to talk to you, or even acknowledge that you'e a person. Do you understand me, soldier? Ey?
> 
> Мерзавец! Я тебе разве разрешил разговаривать?! You little fuck! Did I give you permission to speak?
> 
> Не смотри на меня. Не разговаривай с мной. Ты боевое средства - и ты мне принадлежишь! Don't look at me. Don't speak to me. You're a weapon and you're mine.
> 
> Note: These translations are not direct so if you translate them via Google translate you might get something different.


End file.
